Never Again: When We Learn Financial Lessons the Hard Way

Spending without thinking

Bad spending and poor financial judgments can take you on a spiraling descent of pure financial madness.

A lot of people live beyond their means and that is the reason why they get into numerous debts. They want to mimic how others live, yet their paycheck won’t let them. To me, that is just silly. Having a big house, fancy car and you are not able to pay for it is unbelievably stupid. It is okay to dream, but you have to be realistic about things. You cannot let the lifestyles of other people influence you. You end up making a fool out of yourself as you steadily learn financial lessons that turn your life upside down.

“I want now…will think about it later”

Maxing out your credit cards to go for a second honeymoon, or taking up a loan to buy a car you must have, but really don’t need will make you learn financial lessons really quickly.

Making your payments late and not taking any precaution after making those late payments is a very bad attitude to have towards your finances. Just because you ignore them long or hard enough does not mean that they are going away any time soon.

Doing things on a whim just because you can and feel like it will cost you everything that you consider to be of value in your life;

Time

Money

Privacy

1) Time

You never know how valuable time is until you no longer have it. Debt collectors come after you with no mercy and with no shame. It does not matter whether you are at work or at home or in the grocery store; they blow up your phone as if the world is about to end. They don’t care if you are asleep or if it is your off day. The phone calls come in faithfully everyday. That is one of the ways you learn financial lessons. Time just gets taken away from you.

2) Money

It is especially hard to part with money that you don’t actually owe. By this, I mean the very high interest rates on the credit cards or loans you took. Interest rates are the ones that financially kill an individual because they are so high that you never get to pay your actual debt. All that keeps re occurring is the renewal of the initial loan by paying a fee to sustain your debt.

They manage to keep you stagnant. You do not get to pay your debt, but you are still paying them. How crazy is that?

Your credit score is another monetary aspect that you will have to deal with, whether you like it or not. Your credit score is destroyed due to these loans or credit cards and you will never be able to get anything on credit ever again. This is one of the ways to learn financial lessons since a good credit score is an important need in your life for various financial reasons.

3) Privacy

Your privacy is violated and there is pretty much nothing you can do about it. As usual, debt collectors acquire your number or your address and harass you with letters and phone calls. It is one of those consequences that get you to learn financial lessons. They even call you at your workplace and we all know how embarrassing that is. You can’t even be in debt without anyone being discreet about it! What a pain!

The best thing is stop taking calls from collection agencies. They are just wasting your time and you would be wasting theirs because you are not in a position to pay. When you are good and ready, make settlements every month until you can finish off any outstanding debt.

Meanwhile, cut up all your credit cards and resist the urge to get other self inflicting debts by getting more credit cards.

How to avoid and ease your financial debt

You have to start living life within your means or you are going to be forever in debt. If you are done, then to learn financial lessons will be a thing of the past and you shall have a piece of mind. You also have to minimize your financial budget by:-

Cutting down your shopping sprees

Cutting down on how often you eat out.

Cutting off extravagant trips with your wife or family in general.

Getting out of long term contracts that may leave you in long term debt e.g.; Gym memberships.

Minimizing costs on groceries and bills.

Minimizing the costs of house repairs: If they are not immediate, then forget them for a while. You don’t want to learn financial lessons just because your patio needed a little bit of coloring.